Links, email addresses and web pages 

Links are great. They signpost people to related content and add additional context and depth. Embed links in the natural flow of the content; never use "click here" or "read this" for a link – it's not in the least bit useful. Unspecific and non-descriptive link text like this is especially unhelpful if you're using a screenreader.

A good link tells you what to expect if you click on it. A well-integrated link could be changed to plain text and the sentence would still make sense:

Our guide to bold, italics, and underlining will show you how to deal with formatting.

Read this to find out how to deal with punctuation.

Brooke’s work expands to Afghanistan, which has 1.6 million working donkeys, horses and mules.

To learn more about Brooke’s work in Afghanistan, click here.

Keep in mind that links need to make sense out of context, and ideally should be the name of the page, report or website they go to.

Alternatively, they can be a call-to-action (“Download and complete the registration form”).

Web addresses

If you're writing for print and need to spell out the URL, write it all in lower case, and don't include the "www" – it's pretty redundant nowadays.

thebrooke.org/get-involved/donate

bbc.co.uk/news

There's also no need for the "https://". It's increasingly standard and it's an extra hassle for people to type it in after reading it in print. Plus, they'll be able to see the padlock sign in the address bar once they're on the relevant page if they're worried about security:

thebrookeshop.org/collections/cards

In print, highlight the URL in bold, and punctuate the sentence as normal.

Our homepage is thebrooke.org.

Email addresses

Write email addresses in lower case, with normal punctuation. In web content, make email addresses mailto: links. In print, make them bold:

For more information contact jeff.bridges@thebrooke.org.

Never write “E:” followed by an email address – the format it's in makes it obvious that it's an email.

There's no need to put a hyphen in "email". That's a 90s thing that would make us look behind the times.